Lack Of Empathy In Elie Wiesel's Night

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Throughout Night, Elie Wiesel demonstrates the indifference and lack of empathy created by extreme conditions. Wiesel develops this theme as early as in chapter two when Elie is packed into the back of a cattle car and is being transported to Auschwitz. With everyone's nerves at their breaking point, when Mrs. Schächter began having a mental breakdown, they resorted to violence, and “when they actually struck her, people shouted their approval”(26). The stress and distress caused by being trapped in the cattle car brought a tight knit, religious community to beating an older woman. This loss of empathy even impacts familial bonds, this is illustrated vividly during the death march, Rabbi Elihau’s son abandoned him. He had seen him yet he “

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